


Peter's Stupid Appendix

by sahiya



Series: Irondad Bingo 2019 [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Appendicitis, Caretaking, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad Bingo 2019, Nausea, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Tony Stark, Surgery, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Lives, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 06:43:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20559953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: It started with a stomach ache.





	Peter's Stupid Appendix

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Fuzzyboo for beta reading!
> 
> This is for the "No Anesthesia" square on my Bingo card, but there is definitely _no surgery without anesthesia_ in this fic. I promise. 
> 
> This spun off from my [5+1 fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20185579/chapters/47828308) and takes place roughly in that same universe (and the same universe as [After the Storm Passed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20390206)).

It started with a stomach ache. 

It was honestly kind of weird, because Peter hadn’t been sick since the bite, and Dr. Banner was pretty sure he couldn’t get sick from normal stuff. But then again, Peter was pretty nonchalant about the stuff he ate around the city, especially when he was out as Spiderman. He’d eat just about anything someone wanted to buy him, from churros to falafel to some pretty questionable street meat.

So when his stomach started to hurt toward the end of patrol, he chalked it up to the street meat finally catching up with him and headed home a little early. May was at Happy’s for the night, so the apartment was empty. Peter looked at the leftover pizza in the fridge and winced, deciding to go for Sprite and a dusty can of chicken soup he dug out of the back of the cupboard and heated up on the stove.

He texted both May and Tony while he waited for it to finish heating up, letting them know he was home from patrol. Both of them responded within a couple of minutes. May’s text said, _Thanks, kiddo. Sleep tight. Larb you!_ Tony’s respond was a photo of Morgan, wrapped up tight in her bathrobe with its hoodie pulled over her head. The hoodie had bear ears and fell almost to her nose, leaving her peering out from underneath it. She was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet and grinning at the camera. 

Peter smiled fondly and wrote back, _Cute. Kind of late for bath time, isn’t it?_

_I took it earlier_, Tony wrote back. _Thought I’d send it as your reward if you remembered to text when you got home._

_I always remember to text_

_You mostly remember to text. Everything went okay?_

Peter’s stomach cramped. He hesitated, wondering if he should say something. But it was just a stomach ache, after all. He wasn’t running a fever and he hadn’t puked. Tony was at least three hours away by car, and he had better things to do than come running because Peter’s tummy hurt. May was closer and would’ve come home if he’d asked, but he didn’t want to ruin her evening, either. 

_Yeah, everything was fine_, he finally wrote back. _We still on for this weekend?_

_Wouldn’t miss it, kid. Fair warning, Morgan has a packed itinerary. I’m going to have to thumb wrestle her for you._

Peter smiled. Pepper was out of town on SI business, helping to pick up the pieces from the blip as best she could as CEO of SI. It’d just be the three of them. _She does go to bed at 8._

_Supposedly. I hear the pitter-patter of little feet that should’ve been asleep 2 hours ago. Better go deal with that. Sleep well, Pete._

_You too, Tony._ Peter paused, swallowed, then added, _Love you._

_Love you, too, kid._

Peter put his phone down. That was new for him and Tony since he’d come back and Tony had nearly died. Peter would never forget the first time he’d seen Tony after he’d woken from his medically-induced coma, nearly two weeks after the battle with Thanos. With the one arm he had left, Tony had pulled Peter down, kissed him on the forehead, and whispered, “I love you, Pete.” Peter, to his horror, had started crying, barely managing to choke out, “I love you, too.” 

That was the first time but it was far from the last. Peter really wished they could’ve gotten to this point without all the death and PTSD, but he didn’t regret the changes in his relationship with Tony at all. 

Or Morgan. Morgan was pretty great. 

Peter’s soup had started to bubble. He turned off the heat and dished some out into a bowl. He curled up on the sofa with his soup and his Sprite and an episode of _Queer Eye_. 

He was usually starving after patrol, but he only managed to get down about half the soup before his stomach protested. He rubbed at it, trying to figure out the most likely culprit. He’d had an arepa earlier, but it’d been from an actual restaurant––well, a hole in the wall with a window, more like a stationary food truck––with an A rating in the window. But last night he’d had fish from the taco truck in Jamaica. He guessed it could’ve been either. With the sheer volume of street food he consumed, he was probably due for a stomach ache. 

He nursed his can of Sprite while he finished the episode, then cleaned up from dinner. He crunched a couple of Tums before brushing his teeth, to no effect. His stomach was still aching when he crawled into bed and turned off the lights, but it wasn’t so bad. He’d definitely had worse as Spiderman. It’d be better in the morning.

***

It was not better in the morning. 

Peter had a healing factor that was higher than Captain Rogers’s, or so he’d been told. Anything that didn’t require stitches basically vanished overnight. So when he got up after a sweaty, restless night and _still_ didn’t feel well, he was confused. And annoyed. 

He had a test in bio and a paper due in English, or he else might’ve stayed home. He was chilled, like maybe he had a fever, and his stomach actually felt worse than it had the night before; it’d gone from achy and crampy to nauseated and stabby. But May was at work already, and he didn’t want to bug her, or have to make up the test, so he dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. 

“Wow, you look like death,” MJ pronounced when he sat down next to her in English. 

“Thanks,” Peter said, putting his head down on his desk. He hadn’t eaten breakfast, which meant his blood sugar was tanking on top of the stomach ache-turned-nausea. Spider metabolisms sucked sometimes. 

“Uh, she’s kind of right,” Ned said, eyeing him warily. “Are you sure you should be here?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a stomach ache.”

“A stomach ache?” Ned repeated dubiously. “Dude, can you even––” Peter coughed, loudly. “Uh, I mean––that’s weird. Do you think you ate something?”

“Food truck fish,” Peter muttered as his stomach tried to stab him from the inside out.

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” MJ said. “Well, if you’re gonna puke, make sure it’s not on me.”

Ned was still eyeing Peter like there was a lot more he wanted to say, but the teacher walked in. Peter handed in his essay and spent the rest of the period trying to keep the contents of his stomach where they were supposed to be. He succeeded, but it took basically everything he had. 

Bio was next. Peter had studied well for the test, but it was hard to concentrate. The nausea had gotten much worse while he was up and walking around during the break. He managed to get through the multiple choice part mostly on autopilot, but then he had to draw a diagram illustrating glycolysis for a good thirty percent of his grade, and he just... couldn’t. He didn’t want to leave it blank, but it was impossible to think about anything except his stomach. 

He’d been sitting there staring at the page for ten minutes without drawing anything when he was suddenly sure that he was about to throw up. 

He scribbled something and got up to turn it in. “Can I have a hall pass for the bathroom?” he asked breathlessly. 

Mr. Harrington took one look at him and handed him the hall pass in a hurry. “Why don’t you go to the nurse’s afterward?” he suggested. 

“Yeah, thanks.” Peter took the hall pass and stumbled out, praying he didn’t run into Flash or any of his cronies on the way there. He was pretty sure he’d end up puking on them. As satisfying as that might be in the moment, in the long run it wouldn’t turn out well for him. 

He made it, barely. Considering how little he’d eaten since lunch the day before, it was mostly bile and stomach acid. Still really gross and possibly more painful. 

When he was finally finished, he slumped over, panting, then reached up to flush. He dragged himself to his feet and splashed water on his face at the sink. He glanced at himself in the mirror and cringed. MJ was right. He _did_ look like death. 

He decided to take Mr. Harrington’s suggestion and shuffled down the hall to the nurse’s office. She glanced at him and her eyes widened. She pulled up his file. “Any preference?” she asked him. 

Peter grimaced. May was at work. Tony was three hours away. “Harold Hogan,” he replied. Maybe Happy would even be willing to keep it between them. 

He should have known that was a pipe dream. 

It took Happy about forty minutes to come and get him, most of which Peter spent curled up on the cot in the little room off the nurse’s office, except for when he threw up again. The nurse––Ms. Jeffords––was sympathetic, at least. She gave him a damp cloth for his forehead and a ginger ale from her secret stash. But Peter was still ready to get out of there by the time Happy arrived.

Happy’s eyebrows shot up when he saw him. “Jeez, kid, you look—”

“Like death, I know. Everyone’s told me. Please, can we just go? I feel like shit.”

He must’ve really looked pathetic, because Happy didn’t rib him anymore than that. He signed him out, then took Peter’s backpack from him. Peter let him. Then he put his hand on Peter’s shoulder and steered him down the hallway and out to the black Audi waiting at the curb. Peter climbed into the front seat and curled up in a ball, praying they made it home without him needing to ask Happy to pull over. 

It took him several minutes to realize they weren’t heading toward the bridge. They were inching uptown in midday traffic. “Where are we going?”

“Super kid with a super immune system who gets sick enough I have to come and get him from school? You’d better bet we’re going to the tower so Banner can take a look at you.”

Peter groaned. “I just ate some bad fish from a taco truck, Happy. There’s no reason to drag me to the tower. Tony doesn’t even need to know.”

“Too late. Tony and May both know I had to sign you out.”

“_Happy_...”

“Kid, I know which side my bread is buttered on, and it ain’t yours. Now go to sleep. It’s gonna be a few minutes.”

Peter didn’t think that was going to happen. His stomach hurt too badly, and he felt like he might puke again. “Is Tony coming down?” 

“Depends on what Banner finds. He wanted to, don’t get me wrong, but with Pepper out of town, he’d have to bring Morgan, so I talked him into waiting.”

“Oh,” Peter said, swallowing down his disappointment along with his nausea. “Good.”

Happy gave him a look that made Peter think he hadn’t been very convincing. Peter looked away and tried not to sulk. As much as he liked Happy, he wasn’t Tony. Tony never made him feel like Peter was bugging him. Peter knew that Happy didn’t really feel that way, but it still pushed a bunch of Peter’s most insecure buttons. And Happy wasn’t going to hug him, or stroke his hair, or cuddle with him while watching _Queer Eye_ or _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_. 

He shouldn’t want Tony to come down, anyway, Peter reminded himself firmly. It was a stomach ache. No big deal.

“Kid, there should be ginger ale in the fridge in the backseat,” Happy said after a minute. Peter waited until they were stopped at a red light, then took his seatbelt off and twisted around. His stomach didn’t like it at all, but he managed to retrieve a ginger ale before the light changed. 

“You okay?” Happy asked, eyeing him warily.

“Yeah, thanks,” Peter mumbled, and popped the tab. 

The ginger ale took the edge off the nausea enough to get them to the tower without any unplanned stops. Peter assured Happy that he could walk himself to the medbay just fine, so Happy went to put the car away, leaving Peter on his own. 

He avoided his own own reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator as FRIDAY whisked him up to the medbay. This day _sucked_. He really hoped it wasn’t about to get worse.

Dr. Banner was waiting for him. “Hi Peter,” he said, sounding a lot more cheerful than Peter thought was warranted by the situation. “I hear you’re feeling a bit under the weather.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, clutching his almost empty can of ginger ale. The elevator ride hadn’t helped his nausea any.

Fortunately, Dr. Banner got him lying down pretty fast, even if he did make him change into a hospital gown first. He gave Peter a fresh ginger ale and an emesis basin and said, “There’s nothing I haven’t seen, Peter.” Peter gave him a weak smile and tried to curl up in a ball. But Dr. Banner wouldn’t let him. 

“Sorry, Peter, I need to be able to examine your abdomen.”

“I’m sure it’s just food poisoning.”

“Well, I’m not,” Dr. Banner replied, glancing at his StarkPad. “Your blood pressure and temperature are both above your normal range. When did the pain start?”

“Last night. Didn’t hurt as bad as it did this morning.”

“Hmm, all right. Tell me if anything hurts.” He started pressing on Peter’s abdomen––firmly but not too hard. Peter looked at the ceiling and played a mental game of Anywhere But Here. The hammock by the lake, on a nice summer’s afternoon, when it wasn’t too hot and there weren’t that many bugs––

“OW!” Peter yelped. 

“Sorry.” Dr. Banner didn’t sound startled, like maybe he’d expected the reaction. Peter glared at him. “I thought that might be painful.”

“It was,” Peter said, putting a protective hand over his stomach. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I did,” Dr. Banner said. “FRIDAY, do me a favor and get Tony on the line, please? Video call if you can.”

“Calling Mr. Stark,” she replied. 

Peter groaned. “Do we really need to bother Tony about this?”

“Yes,” Dr. Banner said flatly. 

The screen across from Peter’s hospital bed flickered to life before Peter could answer. Tony was sitting at the kitchen table by the looks of it. Peter could see the living room in the background. Something bright and animated was on the TV, but it was too blurry for Peter to tell what it was. Tony was crystal clear, though, almost like he was in the room, with the very crucial difference that he couldn’t hold Peter’s hand or put an arm around his shoulders. 

“Hi Tony,” Bruce said. 

“Hey Bruce, hey Pete. Jeez, kid, Happy said you looked rough, but he didn’t do you justice. Bruce, haven’t you given him anything for the pain?”

“Not yet, I want him lucid for this.”

Tony frowned. “All right. What’s the verdict, doc?”

Dr. Banner looked at Peter and sighed. “I want to do an ultrasound to confirm, but I’m ninety percent sure, based on my physical exam, the location of his pain, and the onset of his symptoms, that Peter has appendicitis.”

“What?” Peter said. 

“What?” Tony echoed. 

“Quite.” Dr. Banner pulled up a stool and sat down. “Now, normally this isn’t a big deal. There’s really only one course of action with appendicitis, and it’s a fairly straightforward procedure. I’d say we do it here, then Peter could spend a few days at the lake house sleeping and eating as much as he wants, and he’d probably ready for school again on Monday.”

That sounded pretty nice. But Peter had already spotted the giant hole in Dr. Banner’s plan. “Except you don’t have any anesthesia that can knock me out for the surgery.” 

Dr. Banner nodded. “Exactly. We have plenty of the super soldier anesthesia we use for Steve and Bucky, which is good enough for setting a bone or doing some stitches but not for surgery. I’m not comfortable giving you more than I did when you broke your leg, which was already more than I’d ever given either of them, and even that didn’t knock you out.”

“You can’t cut me open if I’m awake,” Peter said, shoving himself over to the other side of the bed. “I’m Spiderman, we can just wait and see if it gets better. Or not. Either way, you are one hundred percent _not allowed_ to cut me open.”

“Pete, Pete, calm down, he’s not going to cut you open,” Tony said quickly. “Right, Bruce?”

“Right,” Dr. Banner said, holding his hands up. “It’s not usually possible to stop appendicitis once it starts, but what we can do is slow it down by giving you heavy-duty antibiotics. And with your immune system, anything is possible. You might actually fight it off. But at the very least it will give us a few days to figure something out.”

“Okay,” Peter said, relaxing just a little. “Okay. That’s... better. But what if we don’t figure something out?”

Dr. Banner hesitated. “Let’s cross that bridge if we come to it. I’m going to pull in Helen Cho and Shuri. I’m sure that between the three of us, we can find something that’ll work.”

Peter nodded, biting his lip. He glanced at Tony, then looked away. He couldn’t ask Tony to come down, not when he was on his own with Morgan. He was just going to have to tough it out. It wouldn’t be so bad. May and Happy would be here, and Dr. Banner. Tomorrow was Friday, maybe Ned and MJ could come hang out at the tower over the weekend and keep him company.

“Pete?” Tony asked after a moment.

“Nothing,” Peter muttered. 

“Okay. I’ll see you in about four hours, all right? That’s probably the soonest I can be there.”

Peter looked at him sharply. “But you’ve got Morgan.”

“I know, kid. She’s coming with me. Morgan and I are coming down to the city,” Tony clarified, when Peter just stared at him blankly. 

Faintly, Peter heard Morgan yell, _Yaaaaaaay!_

“I know that people who are smarter than me at the squishy bits are gonna be working on this,” Tony added, “but that doesn’t mean I’m not coming down to be with you. Don’t even waste time trying to talk me out of it.”

Peter was torn between being extremely relieved and extremely embarrassed. On the one hand, he wanted Tony with him. He was a little freaked out, if he was honest. On the other hand, it all felt ridiculous. He was Spiderman. Spiderman was not supposed to get appendicitis.

“Thanks,” Peter finally said. His voice cracked embarrassingly, and he had to clear his throat. “That sounds good.”

“Okay. We’ll see you in a few hours, then. Don’t give Bruce any trouble.”

“Says the worst patient I’ve ever treated,” Dr. Banner put in. 

“Hey, Barton is much worse than me.”

“That’s... true,” Dr. Banner conceded. “And Peter is better than either of you.”

“No kidding. Hang in there, kid. Love you.”

Peter felt his face grow warm. “Love you, too. Drive safe, Tony.”

The screen blinked out. Peter glanced at Dr. Banner, who was digging IV supplies out of a cabinet. “Are you going to start the antibiotics now?”

“No, I’m going to give you an IV with fluids,” Dr. Banner replied with a brief smile, “while we call your aunt and I get her sign off on everything else. Then I’ll give you painkillers and something for the nausea, which may or may not work for you. Then I’ll do a scan to confirm the diagnosis, and you’ll rest while I get started trying to figure out something to knock you out. Sound like a plan?”

Peter nodded, letting himself take comfort in Dr. Banner’s gentle, confident bedside manner. “Yeah. That sounds like a plan.”

***

The doors opened on the penthouse floor and Morgan went barrelling out. “Aunt May! Uncle Happy!” she yelled. 

“Morgan, indoor voice,” Tony said, following her with both their duffel bags slung over the shoulder that was mostly prosthesis. “Peter might be sleeping.”

“He’s not,” May reported. Morgan hugged her around the legs. May looked down at her and smiled. “Hi sweetie,” she said, bending to pick her up. “Did you have a good drive up?”

“I guess,” Morgan said. “I watched _Dora_. Dad talked on the phone.”

“Got a head start on things with Helen, Bruce, and Shuri,” Tony explained. “Hap, would you mind taking Morgan up to the pool for a while to burn off some energy?”

“You got it, boss,” Happy said. “Come on, kiddo, let’s get your bathing suit on.”

“But I wanna see Peter,” Morgan whined. 

“In a bit, all right? Pete’s had a rough day,” Tony said. “But we’ll all have dinner together in a few hours if he’s feeling up to it.”

Morgan dragged her feet, but she loved swimming, and it was too cold to do it at the lake. The swimming pool on the roof, enclosed in glass and heated to eighty degrees even in early March, was impossible for her to turn down. She let Happy pull her away, leaving May and Tony in the kitchen. 

“So,” Tony said, once they were gone, “how bad is it?”

“A little better, actually,” May replied, leaning against the counter. “He hasn’t vomited in a couple of hours, and he says the pain is down from about a six to about a three. He’s still feeling pretty rotten, though.”

Tony grimaced. “IV antibiotics suck.” He always fought tooth and nail to avoid them, because they messed up his stomach for days.

“They do. And their side effects are remarkably similar to appendicitis.” May sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “He’s still running a fever, and I don’t think he slept well last night. But I haven’t had much luck getting him to settle down, even after Bruce let him come up here so he could rest in his own room instead of the medbay. I think he’s pretty anxious about everything.”

“I would be, too. It’s not a great situation.”

May bit her lip. “Do you think they’ll be able to do it? Dr. Banner sounded confident earlier, but I thought maybe that was for Peter’s benefit.”

Tony wanted to swear to her that they would figure it out, that three of the leading minds in biomedical science were working on it and they would come up with something before Peter’s situation became critical. But the truth was that he didn’t know that for sure. 

He’d sat in on Shuri, Bruce, and Helen’s initial call in the car on the way up. It had mostly consisted of listening to them exclaim over how weird Peter’s physiology was. They weren’t wrong, but Tony had found himself getting irritated. His kid wasn’t a science experiment. He was a _kid_. If they didn’t sort this out, he was a kid who’d have to have to have his appendix removed while he was conscious, and that was not an acceptable Plan B. 

Which Tony had finally said––calmly, because Morgan was in the back seat and she had a remarkable instinct for conflict, but firmly. 

They had, all three of them, been somewhat abashed. The conversation had turned toward solutions after that, and by the time Tony had crossed the GW Bridge into Manhattan, everyone had an assignment. Tony had signed off feeling better about their chances. 

“I’ve trusted my own life to Bruce and Helen many times over the years,” Tony finally said. “They saved me after the snap. Helen delivered Morgan. And my arm,” Tony flexed it, “was eighty-percent designed by Shuri, including a neural-interface that is far better than anything I could have done on my own. Peter has the best minds in the world working for him, and I promise you, they’re doing everything they can.”

May nodded. “Thank you.”

Tony shook his head. “Don’t thank me. We shouldn’t be in this situation at all, and that we are is my fault as much as anyone’s.”

“How do you figure that?”

“I knew that the super soldier anesthesia didn’t really work for Peter. And we were working on developing something better before––before Thanos and the first snap. After, of course, it didn’t really matter. And since he’s been back––well, a lot of things have been on the backburner. I should have made sure someone was making it a priority.”

May’s mouth twisting wryly. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. We’ve all had a lot going on the last six months, you maybe more than anyone. And _don’t_ try to apologize to Peter about it, either,” she added, a little more sharply. “He doesn’t have the bandwidth to make you feel better. He doesn’t blame you, and he needs you to be rock solid for him right now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tony said ruefully. 

“Anyway, I came out here to make tea, and it seems like it’s ready.” She turned around and pulled a tea bag that had been steeping in a mug out and drizzled a little honey into it. “I’ll help Happy with Morgan if you want to take this in to Peter.”

Tony accepted the mug from her. “Sure, thanks. Hey, anything you want for dinner?”

“If you’re paying? Sushi. We’ll get Peter a big thing of miso.” She smiled at him and gave his shoulder a squeeze as she headed for the elevator. 

Tony took the mug of tea and a box of crackers and knocked on the door to Peter’s room. Peter called a muffled, _Come in_. 

Tony pushed the door open. “Hey, kiddo.” 

“Tony?” Peter replied hopefully, lifting his head and tugging his earbuds out of his ears. 

“That’s me.” Tony sat down on the edge of Peter’s bed. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear us when we arrived. Morgan wasn’t exactly quiet.”

“I’ve been kind of zoning out.” Peter rolled onto his back. “Is the tea for me?”

“Yep. Crackers, too, if you want them.” 

Peter shrugged listlessly. Tony helped him sit up against a mountain of pillows and passed him the tea. He settled back and put his hand on Peter’s foot through the blankets. “May says you still feel pretty lousy.”

“Yeah. My stomach doesn’t like the antibiotics much more than it liked the appendicitis,” Peter said, rubbing at his stomach with his free hand. “I tried eating some soup for lunch, and it just came right back up.”

Tony winced. “I’m sorry, kid. This sucks.”

Peter looked away. “Not as much as it’s gonna suck if they can’t figure out how to knock me out. And don’t tell me not to worry about it,” he added, glancing back at Tony. “I’m gonna worry about it.”

“I know,” Tony said. “But we’re not there yet. I was on a call with Helen and Bruce and Shuri on my way up, and they had some pretty good ideas on where to start.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Peter chewed on his lip. “Are you gonna help them?”

“Of course, Pete. I’ll head down in a little bit and see what progress Bruce has made. But this is really more his area than mine. I trust him––and I trust Helen and Shuri.”

Peter let out a shaky breath. “I do, too.”

“Good.” Tony squeezed Peter’s foot gently. “Now, is there any way I can get you to take a nap for a few hours before dinner? You’d probably feel better. Do you need more painkillers?”

“No, I just took another dose like half an hour ago. They’re not working that great.” Peter winced. “I want to sleep, I just really feel like crap. It’s hard to get comfortable.”

“Have you tried a heating pad?” 

Peter shook his head. 

“I’m sure we’ve got one around here somewhere. Let me go look for one, all right?”

Peter nodded again, unusually quiet. That might’ve partially been the painkillers, which tended to make him a little fuzzy, but it was also one of his major tells. As long as Peter was running his mouth, Tony wasn’t too worried, but the minute he went quiet, he knew things were bad. 

Tony thought the most likely place for him to find a heating pad was the cabinet in the master bathroom. Tony hadn’t used theirs in a few months, not since he’d strained his back in a really ill-advised training session with Peter, but he didn’t think it’d be too hard to find. 

It was in the third cabinet he tried. Tony made a noise of triumph and took it back to Peter’s room. “Success,” he announced as he came in. “Let’s get it plugged in and see if it helps.”

“Thanks,” Peter mumbled, straightening out from where he’d curled up. He watched Tony plug it into the wall socket, and lifted the covers so that he could spread it over his stomach. “Dr. Banner tried to give me something for the nausea, but it didn’t work.”

“Well, your spider metabolism can’t stop heat,” Tony said. He turned it on and decided they’d try the medium setting first. “Let me know if it’s too hot or not hot enough.”

“Okay.” Peter looked at Tony and chewed on his lip. “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

“Sure, kid.” Tony kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the other side of the bed. Peter rolled over very carefully and put his head in Tony’s lap. Tony stroked a hand through his hair, and Peter made a noise that was a lot like a purr. Tony kept it up for a few minutes, until he felt Peter’s head getting heavier and heavier. Then he murmured, “Is the heating pad helping?”

“Yeah,” Peter said drowsily. “Feels good. C’n you rub my back?”

Tony smiled to himself. “Yeah, I can do that.” He ran his left hand––his real hand–– up and down the length of Peter’s spine. Peter melted into the bed. 

After about ten minutes or so, Tony was pretty sure Peter was asleep. He stayed another ten, just to make sure he was really out, and then slowly and carefully extricated himself, pushing one of Peter’s body pillows into his place. Peter buried his face in it and sighed softly. 

Tony closed the door to Peter’s behind him. “FRIDAY, tell May: ‘Mission accomplished.’ Are they doing okay up at the pool?”

“One moment, boss.” There was a pause while FRIDAY spoke with Happy and May. Tony used it to get himself a glass of water and check his messages. Bruce had pinged him a few minutes earlier: _About to have a call with Helen and Shuri. Come down when you can and I’ll fill you in._

That was promising. At the very least, it implied there was something to fill Tony in _on_.

“Ms. Parker and Mr. Hogan say they’re fine to watch Morgan until dinner,” FRIDAY reported. “And Ms. Parker says thank you for exercising your ‘Peter-whispering’ skills.”

Tony smiled. “FRI, order a ton of sushi from the usual place, will you? Extra ginger. And about a gallon of miso soup. Have it delivered about seven, all right?”

“You got it, boss.” 

Bruce’s lab was far more organized and far less chaotic than Tony’s workshop. The work benches and stools had all been re-designed to fit him as he was now, so everything was on a larger scale, but it still gave the impression of an organized mind rather than a mad genius. There was classical music playing as Tony came in, a sure sign that Bruce was thinking rather than actively working. 

“Hey Big Green,” Tony said. “I brought you some tea.” He set an insulated travel mug of green tea on the edge of the desk.

“Thank you, Tony,” Bruce said gratefully. “How’s Peter?”

“Asleep.” Tony pulled up one of the oversized stools and perched on it, somewhat precariously. “Any news?”

“Yes.” Bruce took a sip of his tea. “We’re approaching this from three different angles. Shuri is going to see if there is the possibility of using Wakandan medicine. They have unique flora, some of which have significant curative properties. T’Challa metabolizes a lot of Western medicines, but there are other things he can take. At the same time, Helen is going to see what she can do with a more conventional approach, building on the super soldier anesthesia. And you and I are going to go the nanite route.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “How does that work? The nanites have plenty of medical applications, but anesthesia isn’t one of them.”

“No, but nerve-blocking might be.” Bruce waved his hand and a blown up diagram of one of Tony’s nanites appeared in front o them. “We don’t necessarily have to knock him out, he just needs to not be able to feel what we’re doing to him. If we were able to come up with a strong enough nerve blocker, that would do the trick. And since the nanites are mechanical, rather than chemical, he can’t metabolize them away.”

“True.” Tony couldn’t help but be pleased that he was going to be useful in this after all. As much as he trusted the others, it rankled to feel sidelined when it was his own kid’s health at stake. 

He and Bruce worked for a couple of hours. It was a good idea, but it wasn’t an application Tony had had in mind when he’d designed the nanites, and they were going to have to modify them in order to make it work. Plus, Tony had to admit that his knowledge of human anatomy was limited to the area around the arc reactor and what he’d needed to know in order to design the suit. None of that had included nerves or the nervous system. He had to do some homework before he could even get started.

“So what do you think?” Bruce asked, after FRIDAY had informed them that the sushi had arrived upstairs. “Are we onto something?”

Tony took his glasses off. “I’d say so. But whether we can do it in the next few days...”

“I know. My money’s on Shuri at this point.” Bruce waved his hand, shutting down the holograms. “I want to bring Peter in for another scan this evening and make sure things aren’t progressing more quickly than anticipated. I can’t fully predict how his body is going to react to the infection and the antibiotics.”

“So what you’re saying is that we might have even less time than we thought?” Tony said as they got into the elevator. 

Bruce grimaced. “I’m saying that I don’t know how much time we have, and that worries me.”

It worried Tony, too. But he tried to shove that aside, at least during dinner. 

Peter had woken up from his nap and emerged from his room. Morgan had wasted no time in co-opting him, but it seemed she’d taken everyone’s warnings about how bad he was feeling to heart; the two of them were ensconced on the sofa, reading a pile of books. Everyone else was in the kitchen, piling their plates high with sushi. Except for May, who was straining miso soup into a bowl.

“What’s going on here?” Tony asked as he went to get his own plate and make one up for Morgan. He’d ordered her a California roll with a soy wrapper, since she’d started turning her nose up at nori. She insisted it was the same “slimy, gross stuff” that grew in the lake, no matter how many times Tony had explained that it was special seaweed, meant for eating.

“I’m straining out the scallions, tofu, and seaweed,” May said, a hint of irony in her voice. “Since they’re apparently unacceptable to our kid right now. Save me some sushi, will you? I’ll eat anything that’s there.”

“Yep, I got you.” Tony piled one or two of everything he was taking for himself onto a plate for May. Bruce would polish off whatever was left and probably make himself a second dinner later that evening. His metabolism was at least as demanding as Peter’s.

They ate in the living room around the coffee table. Tony had Morgan on one side, sandwiched between him and Happy, and Peter on the other, sandwiched between him and May. Peter leaned against him while he sipped slowly at his mug of miso broth and picked at the pickled ginger Tony had put on the edge of his plate for him. 

Tony kept an eye on Morgan. She was eating her roll and her edamame pretty steadily, but she’d been a little less chatty since they’d all sat down. “You doing okay, Morguna?” he asked her quietly, under the buzz of the group’s conversation. 

She nodded first, then shrugged. “I miss Mommy. Everyone’s here ‘cept her.”

“I miss her, too.” Tony glanced at his watch and did a quick mental calculation. “Want to call her after dinner?” 

Morgan nodded, brightening. Once everyone was done eating, Tony took her off to do that, while May accompanied Peter down to the lab with Bruce for his scan. Peter looked kind of bereft, which made Tony feel guilty, but the kid had his aunt and Bruce, and Tony couldn’t keep foisting Morgan off onto Happy. Not to mention, it had been a long-ass day and Tony pretty desperately wanted to talk to his wife. He suspected this was one of those “self-care” things Pepper was always lecturing him about. Not that that made him feel any less bad about it.

He felt much better after talking to Pepper––as he’d known he would––and so did Morgan. But that didn’t stop her from being extra finicky about her bedtime routine. She’d had a bath after swimming, so they were able to skip that, but two books turned turned into several rounds of “just one more.” Finally Tony put his foot down and insisted that they turn out the lights. Morgan whined, but she’d started yawning by then, and Tony knew he’d win eventually. 

“Daddy?” Morgan asked, just as Tony was about to close her door. “Is Peter going to be okay?” 

Tony smiled at her. “Peter has a lot of really smart people helping him. You don’t need to worry.”

“_You_ worry,” she replied, too perceptive by half. 

“I do,” Tony admitted. “But I do all the worrying for both of us, so you don’t have to do any. Now go to sleep or I’ll––”

“Sell all my toys,” she finished with a grin. “You always say that and you never do.”

“Because you always go to sleep,” Tony countered. “Good night, Morguna. Love you three thousand.”

“Love _you_ three thousand,” she said. He closed the door behind him. Then he leaned against it and took a deep breath. His kids. They kind of saved him and killed him in equal measure. 

FRIDAY reported that Peter had returned from his scan thirty minutes earlier and was in his room. Tony found him there, cuddled up in his bed with May, watching old episodes of _Mythbusters_. “How’d it go?” Tony asked, pulling the desk chair up close to the bed. 

Peter paused the show and shrugged. “Dr. Banner says it doesn’t look better or worse than it did earlier. So it doesn’t seem like my body is actually fighting off the infection.” 

That was unfortunate. That would have been a nice, easy solution to all their problems. But since when had those ever worked out? “Well, we knew that was a long shot.”

“He also said that Peter needs to be eating more,” May said, reaching over to brush Peter’s hair off his face. “He says that if solid food isn’t working, we might need to try shakes or smoothies.”

“The word ‘Ensure’ was mentioned,” Peter muttered sullenly. 

Tony pulled a face. “Yeah, he’s come at me with that crap occasionally, too. You want me to whip you up a smoothie, Pete? Something easy to digest? I used to make a killer hangover smoothie.”

Peter curled up even more tightly against May. “I really don’t want to eat anything. But... sure. I guess. If I have to eat something.”

Tony ruffled his hair and went to make it. He tossed strawberries, ginger, coconut yogurt, and half a banana into the blender, then added a little vegan protein powder for good measure. He didn’t want to overwhelm the kid’s stomach, but Bruce was undoubtedly right about how much Peter was eating. They’d learned the hard way that the kid’s body went into starvation mode at the drop of a hat, and that was the last thing they needed. 

Once it was all blended up, Tony poured half the smoothie into a cup with a straw and put the other half in the fridge. If it went over well, Peter could always have more.

“Thanks,” Peter mumbled as he accepted the cup from Tony. He sipped at the smoothie, looking almost wary. But then his face cleared. “This is pretty good.”

“There’s more in the fridge if you want it. Anything else you two need before I head down to the lab?”

May smiled at him. “I think we’re okay. Thanks, Tony.”

Peter nodded in agreement, dredging up a small smile from somewhere. He looked very young just then, and more miserable than Tony had seen him in a long time. It made it hard to leave, even though Tony knew that May would be with him until he fell asleep, and after that he’d be monitored by FRIDAY. Tony knew he was needed in the lab more than he was needed to fuss over Peter and change his pillowcase, but it still hurt.

“Okay, then.” Tony leaned over and kissed Peter on the top of his head. “You need anything in the middle of the night, just tell FRIDAY. Don’t hesitate to wake me up, kid, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Peter said, looking up at him with so much trust it kind of made Tony’s chest ache. 

It was time to go be worthy of that trust, Tony told himself. He smiled at Peter one last time and forced himself to leave. 

***

It’d been a while now since Peter had been sick, but he had very distinct memories of the middle of the night being the worst time. It was always when it felt hardest to breathe, or when his fever went up, or when he was just awake and restless and uncomfortable. Everything felt worse then, because he wanted so badly to sleep and couldn’t. 

Nothing had changed, it seemed. Lying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night still _sucked_. Peter hadn’t even had the foresight to grab a pillow off his bed, so he was lying there with a towel under his head. He’d thrown up all the smoothie he’d drunk earlier, and now he was nauseated and shaky. 

“FRIDAY, is anyone awake?” he asked without much hope. 

“I’m afraid not, Peter. But boss was very clear that if you needed him in the middle of the night, you should not hesitate to wake him.”

“Tony doesn’t sleep enough,” Peter replied miserably. “And I don’t _need_ him.” He’d been up late, working in the lab with Bruce, Peter knew. He’d only gone to bed a couple hours ago. 

He couldn’t stay on the bathroom floor, Peter decided. If he wasn’t going to sleep, he could at least be in his bed, where it was comfortable. He could do this, he told himself. He was _Spiderman_. He could stand up and walk ten feet to his bed. 

Except that he could not do that. He got as far as sitting up before he felt so lightheaded that he had to stop. And to make matters worse, his stomach had started hurting again––not just the nausea, but the stabbing and cramping that had mostly gone away since he started using the heating pad. 

This whole experience had already been awful, and it might get worse before it was done. Peter knew that everyone was working hard on his behalf. He knew that Dr. Banner and Dr. Cho and Shuri were probably the best people in the world to try and solve the problem. But now, in the middle of the night, with nothing and no one to distract him, he couldn’t help thinking about what would happen if they couldn’t, and it scared the hell out of him. 

“Peter, you appear to be in distress,” FRIDAY said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to wake Mr. Stark? Or your aunt?”

Peter sniffled. He wasn’t sure when he’d started crying, but the coolness of the tears on his cheeks made him realize that his fever had gone up again. That probably accounted for the feeling like his head was only semi-attached to his body. That, and not having kept down anything substantial in well over twenty-four hours. 

“Peter?” FRIDAY prompted. 

Peter sniffled again. “I want Tony,” he admitted.

“Of course, Peter. Just a moment.”

Peter tilted his head back against the wall, already feeling guilty. He wondered if it was too late to take it back. But before he could ask, he heard footsteps coming down the hall. 

“Peter?” Tony said, appearing in the doorway to the bathroom. He still had pillowcase creases on the side of his face, and he looked like he was only half-awake. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter blurted out. “I shouldn’t have made FRIDAY wake you. I’m fine––just, just go back to bed.”

Tony blinked at him. “Kiddo, you’re sitting on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. I have some experience with that situation myself, and it doesn’t tend to happen to people who are fine.”

“I’m just nauseous,” Peter said, glancing away. “And kind of light-headed. I can’t... I can’t really stand up.”

“But otherwise you’re fine?” Tony’s voice was wry. He knelt down next to Peter and felt his forehead. He winced. “Did you throw up?”

“Yeah,” Peter admitted. He tipped forward so his head was resting against Tony’s clavicle. “I think I’m all shaky from not having eaten, but I can’t keep anything down. And my stomach hurts again.”

Tony wrapped his arms around him. “I’m sorry, Peter. I know this is rough.”

Peter laughed weakly. “It is.”

Tony gently squeezed the back of his neck. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed and see if the heating pad helps.”

Between the two of them, they managed to get Peter back to his bed. Tony retrieved the heating pad from where it’d fallen to the floor, and Peter curled up around it. Almost instant relief. Tony got him a glass of water and a cold cloth from the bathroom, and that was good, too. But the best was when Tony stretched out on the other half of Peter’s bed like he intended to stay, and Peter didn’t even have to ask him. 

“Lights, FRI,” Tony said, and the room went mostly dark. 

Peter rolled over and put his head on Tony’s shoulder. Tony wrapped his flesh arm around Peter and pulled him close, pressing a kiss to his hair. Peter closed his eyes and tried to let go of everything. With Tony’s hand on the back of his neck, it almost worked. 

Unfortunately, Peter’s peace was short-lived. His scan the next morning made Bruce frown. It was followed up by another round of IV antibiotics, followed by another round of puking and an entire afternoon of lying listlessly in front of the TV with his head in May’s lap. He felt too sick to even drag himself upstairs to lie by the pool where Morgan and Happy were hanging out.

“Baby, you have to eat something,” May said, smoothing his hair back from his face. 

“I can’t,” Peter moaned. “Please don’t make me. I just can’t.”

“If you can’t eat, then we’re going to have to give you nutrients via an IV,” May sighed. “Bruce says––”

“I know what Bruce says,” Peter finally snapped, at wit’s end. His stomach hurt and his head ached and he was so, so tired of all of this. To make matters worse, he hadn’t seen Tony in hours. He knew he was in the lab, busting his ass on Peter’s behalf, but Peter couldn’t help wishing that he were _here_, with him. “I’m not going to eat something just to puke it up again. Please, just stop.”

He felt bad. None of this was May’s fault, but it was frustrating, and he knew that everyone was worried about him. If there was an obvious solution, someone would have found it by now, and he was starting to think he might not have that much time. 

“Okay, okay, baby,” she said, using her thumb to wipe away his tears. “Will you at least have some water?”

He nodded shakily and let her help him sit up so he could sip at some water. That, at least, stayed down.

A few minutes later, Dr. Banner appeared and set up an IV line that contained nutrients and glucose in addition to saline and another dose of painkillers. As much as Peter disliked the entire process, he had to admit that he felt much better afterwards. Tired and worn down, but less woozy and shaky. Even the nausea got a little better once his blood sugar crept up. 

Dinner that evening was a lot quieter than the night before. They ordered in again, from a deli this time, and May strained a quart of chicken noodle until it was basically just broth. Somehow, knowing that he didn’t _have_ to choke it down even if he didn’t want it made it easier for Peter to drink it. He finished about half of it, then curled up against May on the sofa with the heating pad on his stomach. No one even bothered to argue when he asked if they could put on _Empire Strikes Back_. 

All this had to be good for something, he reflected ruefully, even if it was just getting his way on family movie night. 

That night, when Peter climbed into bed, May climbed in with him. Peter tried to argue with her about it, but she wouldn’t hear it. And in the end, he was really glad she’d insisted, because even though he didn’t end up on the bathroom floor again, it was almost as bad. He spent the entire night feverish and miserable, tossing and turning in discomfort. When he finally did sleep, his dreams were a kaleidoscope of his brain’s worst hits––Ben dying, Tony dying, turning to dust, getting a building dropped on him, the plane falling out of the sky.

About six-thirty, they both gave up on sleeping any more. It was almost a relief by then, even though Peter felt really guilty about how little rest May had gotten. She left to get coffee for herself and to retrieve supplies for setting up another IV line for Peter. 

The heating pad had stopped working for him. The pain was getting worse, and Peter knew without anyone telling him that the antibiotics weren’t really doing their job. No one had said anything to him recently about how things were going, but he was pretty sure they would’ve told him if they’d found an answer to his problem.

It would’ve been scary even if he hadn’t just endured three mostly sleepless nights, but as it was, it was totally overwhelming. Peter started crying. 

When the door eased open, Peter expected it to be May or maybe Tony. He didn't expect it to be Morgan who came in, with her stuffed cat No-No in her arms. She was still in her pajamas, her hair a little tousled. She saw him and her eyes widened. 

Peter tried to get himself under control. “Hey, Morgan, g’morning,” he managed, smiling weakly. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, pausing a few feet away from the bed. 

“Yeah, I’m just... I had a bad night,” Peter said, rubbing a hand over his face. “You want to come up here?”

She didn’t move. “Do you want Daddy?”

Peter did want Tony, but he was pretty sure Tony was either in the lab or sleeping because he’d been in the lab most of the night. He managed a weak smile. “No, that’s okay. But if you wanted to come give me a hug, that’d be pretty awesome.”

She nodded. She climbed up on the bed and put her arms around him. He buried his face in her hair, breathing her in. It was almost enough to chase away the memory of his awful night. Almost. He closed his eyes.

Then it all went to hell. 

Morgan brought her knees up, maybe to try and kneel on the bed, but she missed. Peter took a sharp, bony, four-year-old knee in the abdomen, and the pain flared hot and bright, just like that first day when Dr. Banner had pressed down. He yelped, almost doubling over, and sent Morgan tumbling off the bed. She burst into tears. 

Within what felt like seconds, May and Tony were both there. Happy, too, hovering in the background. Peter had broken out all over in a cold sweat from the pain, his vision was tunneling, and Morgan was sobbing that she was sorry, she didn’t mean to. Tony picked her up and took her out, giving Peter a single stricken glance as he went, and May sat down on the bed, gathering him into her arms. He wrapped both arms around his stomach, trying to get his breath back. 

“I can’t do it anymore,” he choked out. “I can’t, I can’t.”

“I know, baby, I know––Happy, get Bruce, please.”

Peter knew that tone. That was May’s Nurse Voice. That voice meant things were serious, but she was determined to be calm, because that was her job. It was the voice that had gotten him through a hundred asthma attacks as a kid. Back then, he’d believed there wasn’t much she couldn’t fix. But this wasn’t an asthma attack, and Peter was too old, had been through too much, to believe that now. 

It took Dr. Banner a few minutes to come up from the lab. Peter managed to get his breath back in that time, but it still _hurt_. May wiped his face with a cold cloth and tried to get him to drink some water, but he shook his head, turning his face away. He closed his eyes and thought about being Anywhere But Here. The lake house was his happy place. That was his go-to. But he found himself imagining instead the trip Tony kept promising they’d take after Peter graduated. His mother’s family had a vineyard in Italy. Tony hadn’t been in years, but he’d told Peter they’d go, all of them, together. 

He came back to himself when Dr. Banner showed up, portable scanner in hand. Peter braced for more pain, but Dr. Banner was very gentle, and mostly scanned him from various angles and looked at the results. They were 3D holograms, and some other time Peter would’ve thought it was cool to see holograms of the inside of his own body. But absolutely nothing about this felt cool right now. 

Tony returned, without Morgan, and sat at the foot of the bed with his hand on Peter’s ankle, while Dr. Banner finished up. Dr. Banner pulled up the last set of scans and spun them around slowly, pointing out a spot that was highlighted in red––Peter’s actual appendix, he assumed.

“Okay,” Dr. Banner finally said, setting the scanner aside. He waved his hands and the scans vanished. “It probably won’t surprise you, Peter, when I say that this isn’t working very well. The antibiotics should have bought us several more days, and for a little while it seemed like they would, but at this point all they’re doing is making you ill. And I’m worried that if you go into the surgery without any reserves, recovery will be twice as hard as it should be.”

“Okay,” Peter said, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. “So. Um. What do we do?”

Dr. Banner glanced at Tony and made an open-handed gesture. Tony moved up to sit closer to Peter and took his hand. “We have a couple of options we want to use together. One of them is a modification of something Shuri developed for T’Challa. It won’t put you all the way under, but it will make you deeply relaxed. The other is something that Bruce and I have been working on, which is a nanite nerve-blocker. It also won’t knock you out, but you won’t be able to feel anything.”

“Okay,” Peter said slowly. “Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ here?”

“The ‘but’ is that in an ideal world, we’d get to test these,” Dr. Banner said, “and make sure they worked the way we think they will. But I don’t think we have that luxury.”

Peter bit his lip. “I’d really rather just be unconscious.”

“I know, kid,” Tony said. “We’re going to keep working on that for next time. Not that you can get appendicitis a second time, but you know what I mean.”

Peter swallowed hard. “Who’s going to do the actual surgery?”

“Helen Cho,” Dr. Banner said. “She’s much more experienced than I am. There’s no better hands for you to be in. But I’ll be there the whole time, and you can have May and Tony with you, too, if you want.”

“Okay. I... I won’t be able to _see_ it, will I?” 

“No,” Dr. Banner said. “We’ll put up a screen to block your view.” He glanced from Peter to May and back again. “I think we need to do this. A ruptured appendix is very serious, and I’d prefer not to test Peter’s immune system with septicemia. But why don’t I give the three of you the chance to talk about it?”

“Thank you, Bruce,” May said, smiling gratefully at him. Dr. Banner left. 

Peter looked at Tony. “Is Morgan okay? I didn’t mean to scare her.”

“Morgan’s fine,” Tony assured him. “She feels really terrible about hurting you, but Happy’s going to take her to the zoo this morning, and Pepper should be back this afternoon.”

“I want to see her before I––before the surgery. Just to make sure she knows I’m not mad or anything.”

“Of course, Pete.” Tony paused, then, and took a deep breath. “Kid, I put off getting the shrapnel taken out of my chest for years because I was terrified of the surgery. I know this is really scary. I’m going to be right there with you the whole time, though. If that’s what you want.”

Peter nodded. “Please,” he said, glancing at May, to include her in it. 

“Of course, baby.” She reached out out to brush the hair back from his forehead, then turned to Tony. “When do we do it?”

Tony let out a long breath. “It’s going to take a bit of time for Shuri’s sedative to get here from Wakanda––they can’t just send over the formula. Last I heard Shuri was trying to talk T’Challa into letting her deliver it personally,” he added with a smile, “so you might have a Wakandan princess to entertain you in your recovery.”

“Well, then I _definitely_ have to invite MJ and Ned over,” Peter said. “MJ will murder me if I get to meet Shuri and she doesn’t.”

Tony blinked rapidly. “God, the idea of the two of them is just––terrifying. But sure, kid. We can have Ned and MJ over.”

“Whoa,” Peter said. “Really? I didn’t actually think you’d agree to that. Is there something you aren’t telling me? Am I actually dying?”

“_No_,” Tony said firmly, “and what did we say about making jokes about dying?”

“Not for at least ten years,” Peter recited obediently. Tony had agreed to the same rule after the first––and only––time he'd used the phrase “over my dead body” after Thanos, and Peter had basically come unglued.

“Exactly. It is way too soon still.” Tony shook his head. “Anyway, Helen also needs to come down, and I’d like to wait until Pepper gets here, so that she can take care of Morgan, but we should be able to do it this evening.”

Peter was torn between thinking that was way too soon and thinking that it wasn’t nearly soon enough. But it was what it was, and at least the pain was a little more bearable knowing that it was going to be over soon. 

To Peter’s relief, Tony didn’t have to go back down to the lab. He had a few last things to do, but he was able to do them on his StarkPad, sitting in the living room. After the terrible night he’d had, Peter was stupidly grateful to be able to spend the entire morning with his head in May’s lap and his feet in Tony’s, watching episode after episode of _The Great British Bake-off_. 

“I don’t get how you can watch this show if you’re feeling nauseous,” Tony grumbled after the third one. 

Peter shrugged. “I dunno. I’m not really imagining how it’d taste. And I feel sick, but underneath that I can tell that I’m really, really hungry.”

“Well, the good news is that unlike normal anesthesia, you shouldn’t have any ill-effects,” Tony said. “You should be able to eat something pretty soon after it’s over, though maybe not anything too greasy.”

“You know what you want?” May asked, rubbing running her fingers through his hair. 

“Peanut butter smoothie,” Peter said with longing. “With vanilla almond milk and strawberry jam.”

“That sounds disgusting,” Tony said. 

Peter poked him with his foot. “Don’t yuck my yum.”

“All right, all right.” Tony grimaced. “You got it, kid.”

Sometime in the afternoon, Dr. Cho arrived at the tower. Tony left Peter with May and went downstairs to consult with her and Bruce about setting up the surgical suite. Peter hugged a pillow to his chest and tried not to think about it. 

A couple hours later, Pepper arrived at the tower. Peter hadn’t seen Morgan since that morning––Happy had taken her for a nap after they got back from the zoo, and Peter had slept for part of the afternoon himsel. But not long after FRIDAY informed them that Pepper was home, May got a text asking if this was a good time for her to bring Morgan up. 

“Yeah, sure,” Peter said, sitting up. “Just, like... give us maybe ten minutes? I want to wash my face and comb my hair so I don’t scare her again.”

May smiled at him. “You’re a good kid, Peter. And a good big brother.”

“Yeah, yeah, this doesn’t have to be a thing,” Peter muttered. “Just help me to the bathroom, would you?"

Ten minutes later, Pepper led Morgan out to the living room. She clutched a stuffed monkey Happy must have bought her at the zoo and hung back, hiding behind Pepper’s legs.

“Hey, Morgan,” Peter said. He was sitting up on the sofa and didn’t think he looked too terrible. “Did you have a fun day at the zoo?”

She nodded but her lower lip trembled. “I’m s-sorry, P-peter,” she finally stammered, eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Jesus. Peter’s heart just about broke. “I know you didn’t. And it wasn’t really you that hurt me, it was my stupid appendix. You wouldn’t have hurt me if it wasn’t already hurting me. Does that make sense?”

She nodded. She took a brave step forward and held out the monkey. “Uncle Happy and me got you this.”

Peter blinked. “You did?”

She nodded. She climbed up next to him––_not_ on his lap this time––and handed it to him. “Uncle Happy wouldn’t let me get you a spider, even though they _had_ a tarantella.”

“A tarantula,” Peter corrected. 

“Yeah. They had one, but Happy wouldn’t let me. So we got you a spider _monkey_ instead.”

Peter grinned. “A spider monkey. I love it, Morgan.”

Morgan smiled, finally looking more like the kid Peter knew. “I’m glad you like it. You’re not mad at me?” 

“No, snuggle bug,” Peter said, reaching over to hug her. “I’m not mad at all. It wasn’t your fault.”

Morgan nodded, returning the hug. “I love you three thousand,” she whispered. 

“I love you four thousand.” Peter kissed the top of her head and closed his eyes. “You gonna hang out with me while I get better? Watch movies with me, read books?” She nodded, arms tightening around him. Peter smiled, and for the first time since he’d gotten sick, it didn’t feel forced. “Thanks, kiddo.”

Somehow after that, the idea of the surgery was just a little less scary. Not a lot, but little. Like, ten percent. Peter decided he’d take it. 

***

“You ready, Pete?” Tony asked. 

Lying on the surgical table, Peter nodded. May was sitting by his head, where she could stroke his hair, and Tony was sitting next to her, perfectly placed to hold Peter’s hand. The spider monkey Morgan had given him was tucked in at his side. Tony could see Bruce on the other side of the screen that would block their view of the actual surgery, but Helen wasn’t visible. 

In the end, the Wakanda medicine had arrived without a royal escort. But Shuri was impatiently awaiting all the data they would collect during the surgery, so she could improve the formula for next time. Which Tony really hoped would be a hell of a long time from now. 

“All right.” Tony fitted a mask over Peter’s nose and mouth. The Wakandan medicine was aerosolized. “Deep breaths, kid.”

Peter took one deep breath, then another. Between the second and third, Tony saw his pupils dilate. “Whoa,” he said, muffled through the mask. 

“Whoa good or whoa bad?” Tony asked.

“Whoa good.” Peter’s eyelids drooped. “Mmm.”

“Tony, you ready to administer the nanite injection?” Bruce asked, looking at him over the screen.

“Yep.” Tony snapped on a pair of gloves. “Pete, you with me? You’re gonna feel a pinch and then you might feel cold for a few seconds.”

Peter blinked once, slowly. Tony decided that was probably the best he’d do. He swabbed Peter’s elbow and gave him the injection. Peter shivered. “Sorry, kid,” Tony murmured. “Stay with us for a little longer, all right?”

Peter heaved a sigh as though Tony had asked a truly impossible task, but his eyes stayed open while they waited; Tony thought the nanites would probably only need a few seconds, but he wanted to give them a full minute just in case. 

When the minute was up, Tony caught Bruce’s eye and nodded. 

“Peter, can you feel this?” Bruce asked. 

“Feel what?” Peter mumbled. 

“Perfect,” Bruce said. “Just relax now.”

Looking at Peter, Tony didn’t think that was going to be a problem. The kid looked positively stoned. Tony himself wasn’t quite as relaxed; as much faith as he had in Bruce and Shuri and Helen––and himself––he was tensed, ready to restrain Peter if he had to. His vibranium arm was at least as strong as one of the gauntlets. Peter hadn’t really asked what Plan B was, in case things went wrong. Probably because he knew what it was and either didn’t want to hear it outloud or didn’t want to make Tony say it. 

But in the end, Tony’s stress wasn’t necessary. He glanced up from watching Peter’s face and realized that things were underway already and the kid hadn’t twitched. Which meant that the nanites had worked. He relaxed, sitting back in his chair, and squeezed Peter’s hand. Peter didn’t squeeze back.

“I think he’s asleep,” May remarked, smoothing the hair back from Peter’s face. 

“He’s earned it. So have the rest of us.”

May glanced at Tony. “You don’t mind staying at the tower until tomorrow, do you?”

Tony shook his head. “Of course not. In fact, we don’t have to go back to the lake house at all if you’d prefer we stay.”

“No, it’s all right. I think Peter’s been thinking about it the whole time he’s been sick. God knows he deserves a reward after all of this. I’ll come up next weekend, stay a couple of nights, and bring him home.”

They fell silent after that. Only a few minutes later, Helen said, “Closing up now” and Tony realized that the whole thing was almost over. He let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding and let his shoulders fall, feeling as though the entire weight of the suit was suddenly lifted off of them. 

Eventually May and Tony had to step out so that the nurses could clean Peter up, put him in a hospital gown, and transfer him over to a regular bed. Peter did wake up a little bit during that process, but his vitals stayed steady. He didn’t freak out at all the way he usually would have if he’d woken up to relative strangers manhandling him. 

“Huh,” Tony said. He glanced from his phone, where FRIDAY was tracking Peter’s vitals, to the surgical suite, where one of the nurses was tucking Peter into his hospital bed. 

“What?” May asked. 

“Nothing. Just... I’m thinking that if Shuri could come up with something that doesn’t put him straight to sleep, he might be able to finally get some help for his anxiety.”

“Oh,” May said in surprise. “God, I hadn’t even thought about that. I think I’d given up on anything ever working for him.”

“Well, this definitely did.” 

“No kidding.” May shook her head. “That would... well, it still might not make this all worth it, exactly, but it would be a serious silver lining.”

Tony had to agree. He had FRIDAY make a note to remind him to send Shuri an email. 

Bruce and Helen were waiting for them in Peter’s room when the nurses let them in. “Well?” Tony said. 

“He’s doing great,” Bruce said, without preamble.

“He definitely is,” Helen agreed. “There were no complications, and he’s already healing. I want him to rest for a few days, but that’s more as a precaution than anything else.”

“Thank you, both,” May said. “I know the surgery was quick, but you’ve both put a lot of time in the last few days.”

“We’re happy to do it for Peter,” Bruce said with a smile. “That said, I think I’m going to go sleep for about twelve hours. I’ve left instructions with the nurses. His IV has a dose of the super soldier painkiller, and if he has any break-through pain, he can have a low dose of the Wakandan medicine. He’s also getting nutrients through the IV, but he can have something to eat as soon as he wakes up. FRIDAY will wake me if he feels nauseous or vomits, or if his temperature reaches a hundred and one.”

“Great. Thanks again, both of you,” Tony added, and squeezed Bruce’s giant green shoulder as he lumbered by. 

May and Tony looked at each other. “Bruce might have the right idea about sleeping for twelve hours,” May said. 

There was a second hospital bed in the room, empty but made up. Tony gestured toward it. “That’s all yours. He might be out for hours.”

“Are you sure? Weren’t you up most of last night?”

“Yeah, but I won’t sleep for a while yet. And the recliner is comfortable,” Tony added. There were no uncomfortable, hard-backed hospital chairs in Tony’s medical wings, thank you very much. The recliner also had the advantage of being situated right next to Peter’s bed, close enough for Tony to reach out and hold the kid’s hand. 

May hesitated but finally nodded. “Thanks.” She kicked her shoes off and climbed up on the bed, rolling over on her side. 

“FRIDAY, lights at twenty-five percent,” Tony said, and the lights dimmed. He settled into the recliner with his StarkPad and the plans for the next generation of Rhodey’s leg braces. 

Despite what he’d said to May, it wasn’t that long before Tony’s eyelids started to droop. He fought it for a few minutes before finally giving up. The nanites had worked. He’d earned a break as much as anyone else. He closed his eyes and let himself drift off. 

***

“Boss,” FRIDAY murmured. “Peter’s awake.”

Tony blinked. He turned his head and saw Peter looking back. “Hey kid,” he whispered. 

“Hi,” Peter said. His hand was lying on the edge of the bed, and Tony reached out and covered it with his own. He squeezed Peter’s hand, and Peter squeezed back, firm and healthy.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Pretty good,” Peter said. “Don’t ask me fight any crime or solve any linear algebra problems, but otherwise... yeah. Better.”

“Good. The surgery went well. You did great.”

Peter shrugged. “Don’t really see how I did anything. You and Dr. Cho and Dr. Banner and Shuri did all the work.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “And you were an A+ patient. Just take the damn praise, Pete.”

“Okay, okay.” Peter smiled at him. Then his stomach growled and the smile turned sheepish. “Sorry. Guess I’m hungry.”

“You still want that disgusting smoothie?”

“S’not disgusting,” Peter protested. “And yes.”

Tony sighed. “All right. One peanut butter-strawberry jam-vanilla almond milk smoothie, coming up.” He stood up, then leaned over and kissed Peter on the forehead. “Love you, kid. Good to have you back.”

“Love you, too, Tony,” Peter said, smiling up at him. 

Upstairs, in the half-darkened penthouse, Tony threw together the shake in their industrial-sized blender. It was pretty quiet, but apparently not quite quiet enough; Pepper padded out after a few minutes and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “Bruce said it went well,” she said into his shoulder blade. 

“It did, thank God.” Tony let the blender run and covered her hands on his waist with his own. “Morgan go to sleep okay?”

“Mmm, sort of.” Pepper backed off and leaned against the counter. “It took a while. She had a lot of questions about what was happening with Peter. I tried to give her the not-scary version, but I’m not sure there really is a not-scary version of surgery. I think she read between the lines.”

“She’s too smart for her own good. Or _our_ good.”

“Well, she is your kid.” Pepper smiled at him. “Anyway, we’re fine up here. Go be with your other kid.” 

Pepper kissed him and headed back to bed. Tony poured the smoothie into a cup with a straw and took it back downstairs. 

May was awake. She’d wedged herself onto Peter’s bed and was holding him with his head tucked beneath her chin. Peter was smiling, but his face really lit up when Tony came in. It was flattering until he reached his arms out and made grabby hands at the smoothie cup, and Tony realized he was really only excited about food. Tony handed it over, then settled back into the recliner. 

Peter took a long pull of smoothie and sighed in satisfaction, almost smacking his lips. “That is delicious. You want some?” he asked May. “_You_ don’t get any, because you said it was disgusting,” he added to Tony.

Tony rolled his eyes. May smiled. “No, baby, that is all yours.”

“It’s so good. Like a PB&J with milk in liquid form.” Peter took another long sip. “Hey,” he said, when he finally came up for air. “Where’s my appendix?”

Tony blinked. “Um. I don’t know. I assume Helen and Bruce kept it, they probably want to study it. I didn’t ask. Why?”

“Because I want it,” Peter replied, sitting up and almost knocking May off the bed. “It’s my appendix. If anyone has the right to it, it’s me.”

“Okay, kiddo, you need to take it easy,” Tony said, standing up to very gently push Peter until he was lying down again. “I’m going to regret asking this, but what exactly are you planning to do with it?” 

Peter shrugged. “Put it in formaldehyde and take it to school to show Ned. Also, I have some experiments in cellular regeneration that I’ve been wanting to run.”

“Okay, that’s a hard no on taking it to school,” May said. 

Peter pouted. “But it’d be so cool.”

“Kid, I think your definition of ‘cool’ might be slightly skewed,” Tony said dryly, leaning against the hospital bed. He put a hand on Peter’s knee through the layers of blankets. “But I bet Bruce would help you run those experiments if you asked him.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Like you said, it’s your appendix. But it’ll have to wait till you come back.”

Peter looked confused. “Come back? From where?”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “From the lake house. We’re heading back tomorrow and you’re coming with us. We thought that’s what you wanted.”

“I mean, it definitely is, but... I have school, don’t I?” he asked, looking at May. “I mean, I’ll be mostly better by tomorrow. I might not go out as Spiderman for a few days, but I can handle going to school. I don’t really _need_ a week at the lake.”

“Consider it a vacation, then,” May said, stroking his hair. “I’m going to tell the school the truth––that you had your appendix out. It would look strange if you came back so soon after that.”

“I guess that’s true. But we also could just tell them I had the flu or food poisoning or something.”

“Pete, are you really going to argue against a week off school?” 

Peter paused. “Good point. Never mind. Sounds great.” He leaned back against May and resumed sipping his shake. “That new nanite tech is really cool,” he said after a minute. “Can we play with that at the lake this week?”

“Sure, kid.” Tony gently squeezed Peter’s knee. “Whatever you want.”

“I like the sound of that. How long does it apply?”

“Don’t push your luck,” Tony said, doing his best to sound stern. 

From the grin the kid gave him, he was pretty sure he missed “stern” by a mile and landed somewhere in the vicinity of “soft.” And after the last few days, Tony could honestly say he didn’t care. Not as long as Peter was alive and well to give him shit and turn his hair gray. 

But he had to draw the line somewhere. 

"You're not bringing your appendix into my garage. Not even in a jar with formaldehyde."

"Awww, but, _Tony_...!"

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Next up I _think_ will be the "Baby Stark" square as part of the 5+1 fic. Morgan isn't exactly a baby, but we're going to run with it anyway.


End file.
